LAMENTATIONS
In 589 B.C. the Babylonians under king Nebuchadnezzar subjected Jerusalem to a horrifying
3-year siege after the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and others warned of God’s furious judgment on the city for its wickedness. God had repeatedly warned the people of coming judgment, and had the prophet Jeremiah plead with the Jews for 40 years before He finally brought His wrath upon both Judah and Jerusalem.
Roughly 1,000 years earlier God had warned through Moses what would happen during sieges against the city if they turned from the Lord, but they either didn’t listen or didn’t care. And as Moses and the prophets had foretold, during the famine caused by the siege, cannibalism was rampant in the city along with disease and other disasters.
2 Chronicles sums up the reasons why God destroyed the city;
2 CHRONICLES 36:14-21
14 Moreover all the leaders of the priests and the people transgressed more and more, according to all the abominations of the nations, and defiled the house of the Lord which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.
15 And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place.
16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
17 Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand.
18 And all the articles from the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his leaders, all these he took to Babylon.
19 Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions.
20 And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia,
21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
In Lamentations, the Babylonians had already deported most of the population to Babylon as slaves, leaving only the poorest to tend the destroyed city and land. The prophet Jeremiah was freed by Nebuchadnezzar and decided to stay in Jerusalem. He then mourns the fate of the city and the remaining inhabitants in poetic verse similar to that of Psalms.
LAMENTATIONS 1:1-4
1 How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow is she, who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces has become a slave!
2 She weeps bitterly in the night, her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.
3 Judah has gone into captivity, under affliction and hard servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest; all her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.
4 The roads to Zion mourn because no one comes to the set feasts. All her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
Jeremiah uses poetic language to describe the horrors and destruction brought upon Jerusalem by the Babylonians. He likens Jerusalem to a delicate princess, a bride who has lost her husband and sits alone in mourning.
The surrounding nations, her ‘lovers’ that she traded with, whose idols Judah worshiped, have either been destroyed by the Babylonians or have joined the attackers in plundering the city. The majority of the people in the city had been either killed or had been deported as slaves to far-off Babylon, leaving the city deserted. (In ancient times conquered people were deported to the conquerors’ land. The craftsmen enriched the conquerors’ culture, and the nobles were made eunuchs and became palace counselors and advisors to the king, much like the prophet Daniel.)
LAMENTATIONS 1:5-10
5 Her adversaries have become the master, her enemies prosper; for the Lord has afflicted her because of the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.
6 And from the daughter of Zion all her splendor has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture, that flee without strength before the pursuer.
7 In the days of her affliction and roaming, Jerusalem remembers all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the enemy, with no one to help her, the adversaries saw her and mocked at her downfall.
8 Jerusalem has sinned gravely, therefore she has become vile. All who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness; yes, she sighs and turns away.
9 Her uncleanness is in her skirts; she did not consider her destiny; therefore her collapse was awesome; she had no comforter. “O Lord, behold my affliction, for the enemy is exalted!”
10 The adversary has spread his hand over all her pleasant things; for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom You commanded not to enter Your assembly.
Jeremiah admits that this has happened because of the sin and wickedness of Judah. He compares the city to a woman during her “time of the month” (according to the Law of Moses a woman in this state was ritually unclean).
He also bemoans the fact that the enemy had looted and entered the ruins of the Temple, especially the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant sat and where God dwelt, which was forbidden for anyone to enter except the High Priest and then only once a year on the Day of Atonement. Among the items that Babylonians took were;
2 KINGS 25:13-16
13 The bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the carts and the bronze Sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried their bronze to Babylon.
14 They also took away the pots, the shovels, the trimmers, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils with which the priests ministered.
15 The firepans and the basins, the things of solid gold and solid silver, the captain of the guard took away.
16 The two pillars, one Sea, and the carts, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these articles was beyond measure.
The Ark of the Covenant was not in the Temple at the time. The last mention of it was during the time of king Josiah (649-609 B.C.) in 2 Chronicles chapter 35. Legend has it that the Ark was given to the queen of Sheba by Solomon, yet 300 years later Scripture records that Josiah put it in the Temple. It may have been hidden by the priests during the siege.
As for the plundering of the Temple, Jeremiah might not have been aware that contemporary prophet Ezekiel had earlier seen God departing from the city;
EZEKIEL 11:23
23 And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city.
(The mountain spoken of here is the Mount of Olives)
Jeremiah speaking for Jerusalem (at least what is left of it) is bewailing its fate, having been defeated by its enemies and being a mockery to the surrounding nations. God’s wrath and disgust with Jerusalem was demonstrated when He compared Jerusalem as being worse than Sodom and its daughter Gomorrah, and Samaria (the idolatrous former capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, destroyed by the Assyrians in roughly 740 B.C.)
God had said;
EZEKIEL 16:48-52
48 “As I live,” says the Lord God, “neither your sister Sodom nor her daughters have done as you and your daughters have done.
49 Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw fit.
51 “Samaria did not commit half of your sins; but you have multiplied your abominations more than they, and have justified your sisters by all the abominations which you have done.
52 You who judged your sisters, bear your own shame also, because the sins which you committed were more abominable than theirs; they are more righteous than you. Yes, be disgraced also, and bear your own shame, because you justified your sisters.
This gives an idea of the corruption and sin of Jerusalem in that in God’s eyes they were worse than Sodom, Gomorrah and Samaria!!! And as God punished them for their sins, so He punished Jerusalem.
LAMENTATIONS 1:11-15
11 All her people sigh, they seek bread; they have given their valuables for food to restore life. “See, O Lord, and consider, for I am scorned.”
12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought on me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger.
13 “From above He has sent fire into my bones, and it overpowered them; He has spread a net for my feet and turned me back; He has made me desolate and faint all the day.
14 “The yoke of my transgressions was bound; they were woven together by His hands, and thrust upon my neck. He made my strength fail; the Lord delivered me into the hands of those whom I am not able to withstand.
15 “The Lord has trampled underfoot all my mighty men in my midst; He has called an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord trampled as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.
Unfortunately there are always vultures who seek profit from disaster. After the destruction and looting by the Babylonians, unscrupulous merchants from other areas offer to sell food to the starving inhabitants left in Jerusalem for whatever valuables escaped the looters, impoverishing the inhabitants even more.
Jerusalem seeks pity from surrounding peoples, and understands that its destruction and bondage are the punishment from God and what has befallen it is due to the wickedness of its own people.
LAMENTATIONS 1:16-19
16 “For these things I weep; my eye, my eye overflows with water; because the comforter, who should restore my life, is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed.”
17 Zion spreads out her hands, but no one comforts her; the Lord has commanded concerning Jacob that those around him become his adversaries; Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.
18 “The Lord is righteous, for I rebelled against His commandment. Hear now, all peoples, and behold my sorrow; my virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.
19 “I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders breathed their last in the city, while they sought food to restore their life.
Jeremiah portrays Jerusalem as a weeping woman, overcome by sorrow, seeking someone to take pity on her and comfort her. But God has caused its neighboring countries to despise Judah and Jerusalem as their wickedness was worse than that of its neighbors.
Jerusalem now understands in full measure the wrath of the Lord upon it because of the disobedience and arrogance of its people and acknowledges that the Lord’s punishment has been justified.
Judah had abandoned the Lord and had cultivated strong ties with its pagan neighbors, intermarrying with them and worshiping their gods. God had prophesied through Hosea concerning this, saying;
HOSEA 2:4-8
4 “I will not have mercy on her children, for they are the children of harlotry.
5 For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’
6 “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and wall her in, so that she cannot find her paths.
7 She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them; yes, she will seek them, but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better for me than now.’
8 For she did not know that I gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold— which they prepared for Baal.
The siege had caused famine to become so great that cannibalism had been practiced by the inhabitants of the city as prophesied by both Moses and Jeremiah. Nearly 1,000 years earlier, Moses had prophesied;
DEUTERONOMY 28:52-55
52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you.
53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.
54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind,
55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
And God through Jeremiah said a few years before the Babylonians attacked;
JEREMIAH 19:8-9
8 I will make this city desolate and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair.” ’
LAMENTATIONS 1:20-22
20 “See, O Lord, that I am in distress; my soul is troubled; my heart is overturned within me, for I have been very rebellious. Outside the sword bereaves, at home it is like death.
21 “They have heard that I sigh, but no one comforts me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have done it. Bring on the day You have announced, that they may become like me.
22 “Let all their wickedness come before You, and do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions, for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.”
Verses 21 and 22 refer Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah chapter 49, too long to quote here) of the destruction to Judah’s neighbors by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar who would lay waste to Edom, Syria, Kedar (Arabia, east of Judah), Hazor (northern Galilee), and Elam (present-day Iran). He would also destroy Moab, the remnants of the Ammonites and the Philistines just as He had done to Judah and Jerusalem.
The prophet Ezekiel also prophesied the destruction of Lebanon and Egypt at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar;
EZEKIEL 29:17-20
17 And it came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
18 “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder rubbed raw; yet neither he nor his army received wages from Tyre, for the labor which they expended on it.
19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Surely I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he shall take away her wealth, carry off her spoil, and remove her pillage; and that will be the wages for his army.
20 I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor, because they worked for Me,’ says the Lord God.
Nebuchadnezzar’s unfruitful siege of Tyre, Lebanon is interesting as there were actually two cities involved, one on the coast of Lebanon and a fortress about a half-mile offshore to the west. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city on the shore, but most of the people had fled to the island, taking their treasures with them. The Babylonians were not seafarers therefore they could not reach the fortress. And as the fortress could be supplied by sea, it was impossible to besiege it. Therefore Nebuchadnezzar’s army received virtually no plunder from the destroyed city.
(Alexander the Great later conquered the fortress by building a stone causeway connecting the fortress to the mainland which exists to this day.)
LAMENTATIONS 2:1-5
1 How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, and did not remember His footstool in the day of His anger.
2 The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.
3 He has cut off in fierce anger every horn of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire devouring all around.
4 Standing like an enemy, He has bent His bow; with His right hand, like an adversary, He has slain all who were pleasing to His eye; on the tent of the daughter of Zion, He has poured out His fury like fire.
5 The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces; He has destroyed her strongholds, and has increased mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.
God has done what He promised concerning Judah during the reign of king Josiah about 35 years earlier, when He said;
2 KINGS 27:26-27
26 Nevertheless the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, with which His anger was aroused against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him.
27 And the Lord said, “I will also remove Judah from My sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, ‘My name shall be there.’ ”
King Manasseh of Judah (687- 642 B.C.) was a vile, idolatrous king who shed much innocent blood in Jerusalem and promoted pagan worship practices in Judah. He was captured by the king of Assyria (possibly Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib) and take in chains to Assyria, where he repented and was eventually restored as king of Judah.
LAMENTATIONS 2:6-10
6 He has done violence to His tabernacle, as if it were a garden; He has destroyed His place of assembly; The Lord has caused the appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion. In His burning indignation He has spurned the king and the priest.
7 The Lord has spurned His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the house of the Lord as on the day of a set feast.
8 The Lord has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying; therefore He has caused the rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.
9 Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; the Law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord.
10 The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground and keep silence; they throw dust on their heads and gird themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem bow their heads to the ground.
This is a graphic description of the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy made shortly before the city was attacked. Ezekiel had seen the Lord leaving the city and giving instructions to 6 angels armed with battle axes;
EZEKIEL 9:3-7
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the Temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn at his side;
4 and the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”
5 To the others He said in my hearing, “Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the Temple.
7 Then He said to them, “Defile the Temple, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!” And they went out and killed in the city.
God was showing His mercy on those who were appalled at the wickedness of Jerusalem and His wrath against those who blatantly sinned against Him. Ezekiel then records;
EZEKIEL 9:9-11
9 Then He said to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity; for they say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!’
10 And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head.”
11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, “I have done as You commanded me.”
LAMENTATIONS 2:11-17
11 My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled; my bile is poured on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the children and the infants faint in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” as they swoon like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out in their mothers’ bosom.
13 How shall I console you, to what shall I liken you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare with you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is spread wide as the sea; who can heal you?
14 Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.
15 All who pass by clap their hands at you; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that is called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”
16 All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have waited for; we have found it, we have seen it!”
17 The Lord has done what He purposed; He has fulfilled His word which He commanded in days of old. He has thrown down and has not pitied, and He has caused an enemy to rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
Starvation still runs rampant among the remnant of the city. The fields and trees have been stripped bare and destroyed by the enemy, the city was destroyed in November so the harvests were long past and because of the siege no crops had been planted during the year.
Jeremiah had warned of this, when he prophesied concerning Jerusalem and its king;
JEREMIAH 21:6-10
6 I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence.
7 And afterward,” says the Lord, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence and the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. He shall not spare them, or have pity or mercy.” ’
8 “Now you shall say to this people, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
9 He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be as a prize to him.
10 For I have set My face against this city for adversity and not for good,” says the Lord. “It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” ’
Even in His wrath God was offering mercy to His people. Jerusalem was doomed to destruction, but those of the city who surrendered to the Babylonians would go into bondage, but would have their lives spared.
LAMENTATIONS 2:18-22
18 Their heart cried out to the Lord, “O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give yourself no relief; give your eyes no rest.
19 “Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
20 “See, O Lord, and consider! To whom have You done this? Should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? Should the priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
21 “Young and old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; You have slain them in the day of Your anger, You have slaughtered and not pitied.
22 “You have invited as to a feast day the terrors that surround me. In the day of the Lord’s anger there was no refugee or survivor. Those whom I have borne and brought up
my enemies have destroyed.”
It is hard to imagine the tragedy and horror of the people during and after the siege which lasted about 3 years. Siege was a tried and true tactic for attacking fortified cities. Rather than expend men trying to assault the city directly, they would surround the city, cut off food and water supplies and starve the city or cause them to surrender from thirst. God had promised that parents would eat their own children and children would eat their parents before the city fell which indeed happened.
LAMENTATIONS 3:1-9
1 I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2 He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light.
3 Surely He has turned His hand against me time and time again throughout the day.
4 He has aged my flesh and my skin, and broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe.
6 He has set me in dark places like the dead of long ago.
7 He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out; He has made my chain heavy.
8 Even when I cry and shout, He shuts out my prayer.
9 He has blocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked.
Jeremiah is either speaking of himself as an eyewitness to the horrors of the attack and siege or I suspect he is speaking of Judah as a whole. Jeremiah had been chained with the captives being deported to Babylon, but had been freed by Nebuchadnezzar’s command.
God had fulfilled His frightful judgments on Jerusalem and all of Judah and Jeremiah in poetic fashion has described the state of the people as a result. They now understand God’s judgment and most now realize that they will never return, as God has decreed 70 years of captivity for them and that His wrath is not yet finished.
As God had told Ezekiel concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
EZEKIEL 5:12
12 One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
LAMENTATIONS 3:10-18
10 He has been to me a bear lying in wait, like a lion in ambush.
11 He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces; He has made me desolate.
12 He has bent His bow and set me up as a target for the arrow.
13 He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my loins.
14 I have become the ridicule of all my people— their taunting song all the day.
15 He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood.
16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel, and covered me with ashes.
17 You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity.
18 And I said, “My strength and my hope have perished from the Lord.”
Jeremiah describes Jerusalem’s sorrows concerning their present condition as a broken, hopeless people, filled with bitterness and sorrow. (Note: Wormwood is a poisonous plant with a spicy, bitter taste. The chemical Thujone in Wormwood can cause kidney failure and convulsions).
LAMENTATIONS 3:19-30
19 Remember my affliction and roaming, the wormwood and the gall.
20 My soul still remembers and sinks within me.
21 This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
22 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I hope in Him!”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
26 It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him;
29 Let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope.
30 Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and be full of reproach.
Jeremiah may have been remembering God’s words through Moses 1,000 years before, when He said;
DEUTERONOMY 30:1-6
1 “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you,
2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul,
3 that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you.
4 If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.
5 Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.
6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
God punishes, but He does so for correction, and to show His displeasure at our actions, especially if we don’t listen to His calls and warnings! But He does it for our benefit also, much as we correct and sometimes punish our children to their benefit.
As the author of the book of Hebrews said;
HEBREWS 12:7-11
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
LAMENTATIONS 3:31-39
31 For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32 Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under one’s feet all the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the justice due a man before the face of the Most High,
36 Or subvert a man in his cause— the Lord does not approve.
37 Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed?
39 Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
People forget that when God punishes us, He hurts also, much as a parent hurts when they need to discipline their children. His measures may seem harsh to us but He doesn’t afflict us as we deserve, nor does He punish or afflict men on a whim as the Greek and Roman gods were reported to do.
As God had commanded Jeremiah to prophesy to all of Judah;
JEREMIAH 30:11
11 For I am with you,’ says the Lord, ‘to save you; though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether unpunished.’
God promises that even though He may destroy nations in His wrath for their sins, He will only punish Judah as He feels they deserve. He warned and pleaded with them for 40 years before He was forced to act, but they wouldn’t listen. And threats have no force if they are not carried out.
LAMENTATIONS 3:40-47
40 Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord;
41 Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven.
42 We have transgressed and rebelled; You have not pardoned.
43 You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; You have slain and not pitied.
44 You have covered Yourself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through.
45 You have made us an offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.
46 All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47 Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction.
Punishment definitely forces us to take a hard look at our actions and brings repentance. Just because God doesn’t respond as soon as we repent doesn’t mean that He is still angry with us, He could be waiting to ensure that His message has been made clear and that our repentance is genuine.
In ancient times tearing one’s clothing was a outward sign of grief or repentance and was significant because all clothing back then was hand-made, expensive, and most people only had two changes of clothes at any one time. But as was said, tearing clothing is only an outward show. God looks at the heart to see if the repentance is real. As He told the prophet Joel;
JOEL 2:13
13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
LAMENTATIONS 3:48-57
48 My eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 My eyes flow and do not cease, without interruption,
50 Till the Lord from heaven looks down and sees.
51 My eyes bring suffering to my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
52 My enemies without cause hunted me down like a bird.
53 They silenced my life in the pit and threw stones at me.
54 The waters flowed over my head; I said, “I am cut off!”
55 I called on Your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit.
56 You have heard my voice: “Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help.”
57 You drew near on the day I called on You, and said, “Do not fear!”
In ancient times people were stoned as a form of the death penalty. A pit was dug and the accused was thrown into it after which witnesses would gather around and throw heavy stones at the accused until they were dead.
LAMENTATIONS 3:58-66
58 O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul; You have redeemed my life.
59 O Lord, You have seen how I am wronged; judge my case.
60 You have seen all their vengeance, all their schemes against me.
61 You have heard their reproach, O Lord, all their schemes against me,
62 The lips of my enemies and their whispering against me all the day.
63 Look at their sitting down and their rising up; I am their taunting song.
64 Repay them, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
65 Give them a veiled heart; Your curse be upon them!
66 In Your anger, pursue and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.
While understanding why God used Judah’s enemies to destroy Jerusalem, its people don’t want their persecutors and destroyers from the surrounding nations to go unpunished, or add to their woes.
LAMENTATIONS 4:1-10
1 How the gold has become dim! How changed the fine gold! The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street.
2 The precious sons of Zion, valuable as fine gold, how they are regarded as clay pots, the work of the hands of the potter!
3 Even the jackals present their breasts to nurse their young; but the daughter of my people is cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.
4 The tongue of the infant clings to the roof of its mouth for thirst; the young children ask for bread, but no one breaks it for them.
5 Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets; those who were brought up in scarlet embrace ash heaps.
6 The punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, with no hand to help her!
7 Her Nazirites were brighter than snow and whiter than milk; they were more ruddy in body than rubies, like sapphire in their appearance.
8 Now their appearance is blacker than soot; they go unrecognized in the streets; their skin clings to their bones, it has become as dry as wood.
9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger; for these pine away, stricken for lack of the fruits of the field.
10 The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; they became food for them in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Jeremiah mourns for the young men whose bodies litter the streets of the city. With the deaths of the young, the hope for the future is in question.
Jeremiah describes the famine in the city, with the formerly rich and poor in the throes of starvation. When Rome was besieging Jerusalem in 70 A.D. it was reported that desperate people were sifting through the feces of cattle and mules, looking for undigested grain to eat.
Children were starving to death and parents were so desperate that they were resorting to cannibalism, eating their own children. However disgusting that sounds to us, we cannot judge them as death by starvation is a horrible, painful way to die, and desperate people do desperate things to survive.
But God had prophesied of this through Moses nearly 1,000 years earlier when He had warned;
LEVITICUS 26:27-33
27 ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me,
28 then I also will walk contrary to you in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you.
31 I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas.
32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.
33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.
LAMENTATIONS 4:11-22
11 The Lord has fulfilled His fury, He has poured out His fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion, and it has devoured its foundations.
12 The kings of the earth, and all inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem;
13 Because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in her midst the blood of the just.
14 They wandered blind in the streets; they have defiled themselves with blood, so that no one would touch their garments.
15 They cried out to them, “Go away, unclean! Go away, go away, do not touch us!” When they fled and wandered, those among the nations said, “They shall no longer dwell here.”
16 The face of the Lord scattered them; He no longer regards them. The people do not respect the priests nor show favor to the elders.
17 Still our eyes failed us, watching vainly for our help; in our watching we watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 They tracked our steps so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end was near; our days were over, for our end had come.
19 Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens. They pursued us on the mountains and lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was caught in their pits, of whom we said, “Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”
21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, you who dwell in the land of Uz! The cup shall also pass over to you and you shall become drunk and make yourself naked.
22 The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; He will no longer send you into captivity. He will punish your iniquity, O daughter of Edom; He will uncover your sins!
The first time that Nebuchadnezzar had attacked the city in 597 B.C., he had deported some of the nobles, craftsmen and skilled workers to Babylon to enrich Babylonian culture, had exacted heavy tribute from the city and had made Judah a vassal State, installing Zedekiah as king.
However Zedekiah had rebelled against Babylon and had thrown his support behind Egypt, as indicated in verse 17 above.
Nebuchadnezzar came back and finished the job 10 years later, destroying Judah and eradicating Edom shortly afterward, as prophesied in verse 21 above. The remnant of Edom was later absorbed by Judah and later was called Idumea by the Greeks and the Romans. (The Herod family in the Gospels came from Idumea). After the destruction of Judea by the Romans in 70 A.D. the nation of Idumea ceased to exist.
LAMENTATIONS 5:1-8
1 Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us; look, and behold our reproach!
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, and our houses to foreigners.
3 We have become orphans and waifs, our mothers are like widows.
4 We pay for the water we drink, and our wood comes at a price.
5 They pursue at our heels; we labor and have no rest.
6 We have given our hand to the Egyptians and the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7 Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their iniquities.
8 Servants rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.
Jeremiah recounts the dire situation of the inhabitants of Jerusalem after being conquered. Their homes are looted and destroyed, the people wander aimlessly looking for food and shelter; being that it is November, cold weather has set in and greedy merchants of neighboring countries are selling wood and water to the already destitute people for whatever valuables they have left.
The soldiers and officials, all servants of king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, now dictate and control affairs in Judah, and the survivors are bearing the punishments for the actions of their fathers in accordance to God’s warning of;
NUMBERS 14:18
14 ‘The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’
This may seem as if God is being unfair, but He meant it as a warning to parents and their children. He was warning fathers that their actions would affect their children as children often imitate their parents. Also He was warning children to not follow the sinful ways of their parents, lest they suffer punishment as well.
Israel was well aware of this, for God had told them after they had complained before Him after coming out of Egypt. Spies sent to Canaan had brought back frightening reports concerning the strength of the inhabitants and all Israel had wailed that they wanted to go back to Egypt with the exception of two of the spies who urged them to go and conquer the Canaanites. God told them through Moses;
NUMBERS 14:26-33
26 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
27 “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me.
28 Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you:
29 The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.
30 Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.
31 But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.
32 But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.
33 And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness.
God needed to set an example to all Israel concerning their infidelity and knew that a light punishment would be quickly forgotten. But He also said concerning the children of the wicked;
EZEKIEL 18:14-18
14 “If, however, he begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and considers but does not do likewise;
15 Who has not eaten on the mountains, nor lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor’s wife;
16 Has not oppressed anyone, nor withheld a pledge, nor robbed by violence, but has given his bread to the hungry and covered the naked with clothing;
17 Who has withdrawn his hand from the poor and not received usury or increase, but has executed My judgments and walked in My statutes— he shall not die for the iniquity of his father; he shall surely live!
18 “As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother by violence, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.
Note: ‘Eating on the mountains’ was a reference to eating foods sacrificed to idols which had shrines (called ‘high places’) set up on mountain tops. ‘Receiving usury’ was collecting interest on loans, forbidden by the Law of Moses);
LEVITICUS 25:35-38
35 ‘If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.
36 Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you.
37 You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit.
38 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
Charging interest to Gentiles was allowed, but interest, especially predatory lending to their brethren, was not allowed.
LAMENTATIONS 5:9-16
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven, because of the fever of famine.
11 They ravished the women in Zion, the maidens in the cities of Judah
.
12 Princes were hung up by their hands, and elders were not respected.
13 Young men ground at the millstones; boys staggered under loads of wood.
14 The elders have ceased gathering at the gate, and the young men from their music.
15 The joy of our heart has ceased; our dance has turned into mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!
Starvation causes the body to consume itself in order to stay alive, and with disease stalking the city because of the dead bodies littering the streets from illness, starvation and the sword, famine-weakened bodies could not fight off infection, causing fevers and other ailments. God had promised;
EZEKIEL 5:11-12
11 ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity.
12 One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
Invading armies are many times barbaric and this was no different. Women were raped, men and boys were used as slave labor, nobles were hung from shackles chained to their wrists, elders were abused despite their age and dignity.
LAMENTATIONS 5:17-22
17 Because of this our heart is faint; because of these things our eyes grow dim;
18 Because of Mount Zion which is desolate, with foxes walking about on it.
19 You, O Lord, remain forever; your throne from generation to generation.
20 Why do You forget us forever, and forsake us for so long a time?
21 Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be restored; renew our days as of old,
22 Unless You have utterly rejected us, and are very angry with us!
Jeremiah is worried that Judah may have irrevocably sinned this time and may have suffered the fate of their brethren, the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel which had been conquered and deported by Assyrian king Sargon II 124 years earlier in 710 B.C. because of their sins, an event from which they never recovered.
The city has become like a wilderness, with foxes prowling the ruins unafraid, reinforcing the magnitude of its destruction and desolation.
Jeremiah ends with a plea to the Lord for restoration in accordance with His mercies if they turn back to Him.
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